To simplify it, gymnastics and movement guru Carl Paoli explains it as squaring up the hips and then external shoulder rotation followed by internal shoulder rotation.

“When we’re unilaterally loaded our joint tends to cave into internal rotation,” Paoli explains. “So what we’re seeing is that in order to train more speed and rotation all I need to do is do some unilateral loading.”

In Part 2, Paoli continues his progression of learning how to throw a baseball at CrossFit 650 in San Bruno, Calif. The affiliate is home to Game Prep Baseball Academy, a facility catering to baseball players in the area. Co-owner Anthony Granato played professional baseball for eight years, including minor league ball for the Chicago Cubs and Colorado Rockies.

Paoli compares the placement of the body for throwing a baseball to the Olympic lifts.

“When you perform CrossFit and we’re doing all these movements, I’m going from extension to flexion, so that’s actually me once again learning how to throw when I’m snatching,” says the San Francisco CrossFit coach.

In 2005, Bryan St. Andrews helped found one of the earliest CrossFit affiliates, CrossFit SouthWest, in Tempe, Ariz., not far from Arizona State University. Five years later, he moved back… Continue Reading

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